In the 1990s, prior to its accession to the WTO, China dramatically reduced market distortions in its agriculture. We use panel data of 10,488 households from 1989 to 2000 and ask whether these reforms improved the welfare of rural Chinese households measured by the share of calories from...

China underwent tremendous agricultural market reforms in the 1990s prior to its accession to the WTO, drastically decreasing domestic market distortions. We ask whether these reforms have led to agricultural commercialization and have improved the welfare of rural Chinese households measured by...

This study tests whether evidence supports the hypothesis that rural immigrant populations are more sensitive to relative returns to human capital and living costs will be more elastic than those of native-born citizens. An empirically tractable model of incentive to migrate is developed...

This paper studies the regional distribution of the benefits from trade in Mexico after NAFTA. Specifically, we ask whether or not NAFTA has increased the concentration of economic activity in Mexico. Unlike previous work which uses state-level data, we identify the effect of NAFTA on economic...

This paper examines factors affecting the role of individual, farm production, family finance, and regional characteristics in affecting labor force decisions by farm households. Young, more educated households are much more likely to work off-farm, suggesting that off-farm labor has become an...

Rural communities compete with each other for firms, but their residents often commute large distances to work. Consequently, rural communities can benefit from economic growth occurring as much as 50 miles away. Data on county population growth shows that counties benefit from growth one or two...

This session focuses on farm level labor supply and demand response using various methods of analysis. Off-Farm Work Participation, Off-Farm Labor Supply and On-Farm Labor Demand of U.S. Farm Operators Wallace Huffman, Iowa State University; Hisham El-Osta, USDA/ERS/RED. Estimating the Off-Farm...

Agribusiness firms are increasingly hiring non-agriculture college graduates. Unclear is whether the demand for non-agriculture graduates is predicated on an undersupply of agriculture graduates or if non-agriculture graduates have skills that are not being developed in traditional agriculture...

This paper studies how the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) affected income distribution within Mexico given internal migration. In low-skilled labor-abundant developing countries, trade liberalization should theoretically increase the income of low-skilled workers, decreasing income...

Consolidation in the U.S. pork industry continues to reduce the number of operations, while increasing the demand for hired labor. This paper explores how wages have evolved over time by decomposing the increase in wages into a change in the level of wages, human capital, and returns to human...